vacay.

Um, can we go back here? I'm seriously ready for a vacation. Good thing we're headed to Arizona w/ Steve & Tami in March! And, Momma Getaway's coming up!! I am just so ready... This remodel, work, temper tantrums... I need a vacay!

PB & J

For some reason, this dialogue has stuck between me and my Gabers:

Me: I love you, Peanut Butter
Gabe: I love you, Jelly!

And the way he says it is just so darn cute! I'm going to try and get video of it. Happy Friday!

You know you should be wearing "mom jeans"....

When your idea of a great time is closing down Hobby Lobby! I was finally feeling better and decided it was time to get out of the house. I met my great friend, Marya, at Flattop and had a great time catching up with her. Marya is my 'scrappy' friend. She and I have been friends since 2001 (crazy!) where we met at work. Our relationship started out with a shared love of scrapbooking. We have literally spent hours together at scrapping marathons at each other's homes. She and I can talk for hours... and I mean hours. We will start out scrapping at 9:00 am, and before you know it, it's 10:00 at night. That has happened with us countless times!

Anywho... we had a great time tonight. We went to Hobby Lobby around 6:00 and stayed until 8:00 just looking and talking. Ok, so Hobby Lobby has like 5 or 6 scrapbook aisles... so we did a lot of talking! She has a little boy named Jac. Jac and Gabe are so much alike. I love swapping stories with her because it reassures me that my kid is normal! :) C'mon... all you moms out there have wondered, "Is my kid normal??" "Why is he DOING that?" It was too funny tonight because I was telling her some things that Gabe does and she would say, "Jac does that!"

I laughed a lot, I breathed sighs of relief, and I left feeling recharged and ready to go back home and see my fam. Gabe and I have spent a lot of time together this week... It was kinda nice to get out and laugh about someone else's kiddo misbehaving!

today's theme... Stars!

I love stars... I would use them in every room of my house if I could. Just a little twinkle here and there!

How cute are these by SweetCouture?

I adore this room with the stars by Dezignwithaz

Or this wall decal. (also the quote found on WIM's website) by OldBarnRescueCompany? (I think I'm gonna have to have this).

Love this art by CarolineRoseArt

And, finally, I LOVE this apron from ApplesAndAprons!

It's vintage and WAY cute! It just seems like me... Yes, me, wear an apron. I can just hear my sisters now... I swear I should've been a wife in the 50's!

I'm just looking

http://reprodepot.com/index.html

So, I've decided to feature a little "segment" on my blog...the "I'm just looking" segment. This is just my fun way to window shop on the web, without feeling guilty for buying for myself - I love finding new items online and my taste changes so quickly, so this is a guilt-free way to enjoy new stuff!

Can I help you find anything? No thanks, I'm just looking!

These are a collection of fabrics I wouldn't mind buying for myself on reprodepot.com. I love vintage/crafty items. I don't know exactly what I'd do with all of these fabrics, but I can picture aprons, table cloths, and maybe some fun scrappy quilts. I love vintage. I think the reason I love to shop vintage so much is that someone must have loved that item an awful lot to keep it around for so long. I like having items in my home that are interesting and that have a history. Some of my favorite things come from the 70's. I'm really looking forward to the I'm Just Looking part of my blog. I think it'll be a lot of fun! Feel free to share any websites you find that have interesting, fun, lovely items that would be fun to just look at!

One of those days...

So, we had one of those days. Let me just tell you a little about it... (side note: this picture was taken a couple of weeks ago... he wrote on himself with marker and sprayed some hairspray in his hair while he told me he was going potty... just seemed to fit the post!)

1. Little Boy (and Mommy & Daddy) up at 4:15 and not returning to slumber - CHECK
2. More AAAAAAAAAApple juice - CHECK
3. Babysitter can't watch Little Boy (find this out after I've reached town for work) - CHECK
4. Drive home to spend a great day with Little Boy and hope for a nap - CHECK
5. Toddler tantrum (#1) - CHECK
6. Little Boy tipped over the basket of folded laundry (on purpose) CHECK
7. Run to East Peoria for more tile - CHECK
8. Little Boy falls asleep in the car... juuuuuust long enough not to want a nap when we get home - CHECK
9. Mommy tries to get Little Boy to lay down and just watch TV so we can both rest since 4:00 am is very early - CHECK
10. Mommy fails - CHECK
11. Toddler tantrum (#2) when Mommy won't run and fetch the cup little boy threw at her - CHECK
12. Mommy runs out of threats, warnings, and time outs - CHECK
13. Grandma & Grandpa pick up Little Boy and take him to Chuck E. Cheese (already planned) to do what? Of course! Reward him for his great day!! :) - CHECK
14. Mommy and Daddy work on tiling the floor - CHECK

So, as you can see, today was full of challenges. And, I am tired. T-I-R-E-D. You ever been so tired you feel sick? Or, that you just want to cry? Yep, I'm there.

However, as soon as Gabe and Grandma & Grandpa got home, I was so happy to see him and I found myself anticipating him coming back. I missed him and just couldn't wait to hear about how great of a time he had. Of course, he was "Excellent and Perfect" (their exact words) :) for Grandma & Grandpa. That's great though, because I would've felt awful if he wasn't behaving for them.

A couple of good things I'm really thankful for today though... It's great knowing that your child behaves for other people and that they only pull the tantrums with you. AND, God is so good that even when your child is gone for a couple of hours, you miss them already and can't wait to see them again. God renews us parents and that is such a gift! Can you imagine if you carried the weight of their bad behaviors or temper tantrums every day? We don't ... we just keep on loving them every day. Hoping and praying for them. Loving them and missing them when they're not with us. What a blessing... just what our Heavenly Father does for us.

Progress

So, my extremely hard-working hubby worked his tail off today laying the tile in the kitchen. I'm SO happy with how it looks! After this sets for 24 hours (ish) we can walk on it and start the grout work. Greg worked from the time he got up this morning (which is always earlier than me) until probaby 8:00 tonight. I wanted to post some pictures of his progress since he worked so hard and did such a great job.

I was on Gaber duty today and most of the day went really well. We've discovered that he really loves board games, particularly Hi Ho Cheerio and Memory. We tried Old Maid today, but it was just a little too hard for him... the version we happened to have wasn't the most toddler-friendly. It was really awesome playing Hi Ho Cheerio and listening to him count. He loved counting on my turns too. Again, it was just another one of those little moments... One of my favorite things about being a parent is watching my child try or learn something new. Especially when it was something I did as a kid - like Hi Ho Cheerio. Oh, and lately he's been watching the movie The Sandlot. He thinks this movie is hilarious. After he heard L-7 weenie the first time, he had to go up to Greg and call him one... but he said this instead, "Dad, you're an L 5-7 WEENIE!" Not sure where he got the 5...

Chaos...

Right now, we're kind of living in chaos. It hasn't been too bad so far, but I have to be honest... I get a little bit freaked out when we take on projects like this one! And, this is a big one! We recently had our floor in the kitchen replaced with new linoleum by a store that I used to like... I won't name names (but it rhymes with Schmoes...) We spent a lot of money on this floor because we have a rather large kitchen. The new floor dimpled really badly when chairs were put on it for just a short period of time. These dimples hung around and our floor was really starting to look bad. SO, after dealing with Schmoes for 6+ months, we finally got word that we'd be getting 1/2 of our money back due to an installation error. Basically, they advised we could install the new floor over the old floor and this was causing the dimples. Long story short, we used the credit at Schmoes to buy a tile floor that Greg and my Dad will be putting down.

And, because this linoleum also goes into the laundry/bathroom area, we thought we'd open up the laundry area as well! It was really getting claustrophobic doing laundry, so our solution was to make this a half wall. We'll be putting in a narrow countertop for me to fold clothes and new drywall throughout that area. In order to open it up even more, we may completely remove that door, or we may put in a pocket door. Where the studs are right now used to be a pantry. So, imagine that entire area all closed up. Claustrophobic, right?

So, enough about the home improvements for a while... We had a great day today. We went down to St. Louis to speak on an adoption agency panel for adoptive parents in waiting. It was such a great experience and it brought back a lot from Gabe's adoption. I couldn't wait to get home to hug and love on him. I missed him so much today! What was really cool is we got to see some of the panel guests from the conference we attended when we were waiting to adopt. It was awesome to hear updates on their stories. It was also very cool to be able to tell them how much their stories impacted our decision to have an open adoption. We left that conference and that day -in the parking lot- decided we would have an open adoption for our child. I can't say enough, that the decision to have an open adoption with Gabe's birth family is the best decision we've ever made. Greg and I couldn't be more blessed - not just with our child, but with more extended family to share him with. He's one blessed kid to have so many people who love him so much.

And, how could you not???

New Beginning

For those of you who used to read Gabe's Mom and Greg's Wife, thank you so much for following me in Blogland to Wish I Might! My GOAL is to update this every day or every other day. I really want to document this life. This crazy, wonderful, good 'ol life.

So, my little boy turned three on January 14. Three. A great friend of mine gave me this quote:

"These are the longest days... and the shortest years."

Truer words have never been spoken. Three has already brought me some pretty long days! Days of tantrums (seriously, it's like a switch was flipped the minute he turned three!), not going to bed, and talking back. However, these years have flown by. Time has really messed with me the last three years! The tantrums have been more frequent and longer. We've pretty much found that time outs, away from the fun activities going on, have been the best solution. For example, if we're playing with other kids and he starts to freak about something, we don't correct him in front of the other kids. We pick him up, take him out, and wait it out. This usually takes about 5 minutes and he's done. Not too bad.

Going to bed has been another issue in itself... He can now climb over the baby gate we had up - dang! That really worked wonders for us! But, I'll give her some credit, as a baby gate, she surely did her job. I can't believe he didn't figure it out earlier! It's pretty funny... we'll put Gabe to bed, say prayers, read two stories, give kisses, and say "Love you love you love you! No getting out of bed, ok?" To which he responds, "Ludju, Ludju, Ludju. Ok, I won't". Like two minutes later, we hear little feet scampering across the floor upstairs. Then, ever so quietly, he sneaks down the steps and peeks around the corner at us in the livingroom. Greg and I start laughing... the first time. The last few nights, he's done this like 5 times. We can't get him to stay in the room! Any suggestions from you readers would be great! How do you keep a kid in bed??

Along with the challenges, there have been many blessings too. This kid cracks me up. He definitely had his daddy's sense of humor! I love that he's getting funnier and funnier as he grows up. He's also a lot of fun to play with. He's really into Imaginext toys - he's got the Batcave, the Spaceship, and the Firehouse. They are a lot of fun to play with. He's also started preschool! No joke, I nearly cried when I saw his first book order in his backpack! A book order?? Awwwww!!!

More next time... Hopefully tomorrow!